Student loans firm hit by fraud

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/8483817.stm

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The Student Loans Company (SLC) has had to pay out about £4,000 to cover fraud committed by a worker at an outsourced call centre in Glasgow in December.

The individual, who worked for the firm Response, had access to more than 2,000 student accounts.

It is understood that 25 accounts were affected by the fraud. Two students who lost money were reimbursed.

SLC said it had reported the matter to the police and was contacting all students who the individual dealt with.

In a statement, SLC said: "The Student Loans Company has identified an incident of fraud involving an employee at an outsourced call centre in Glasgow in December.

"Breaches of security are rare, and we are treating this very seriously. The integrity and security of student accounts and the protection of personal information is vital.

"We have investigated the incident and reported the matter to Strathclyde Police. The person involved is no longer employed at the call centre."

The statement said the company had contacted the 25 students affected to offer "security advice and support".

It continued: "As a further measure we are writing to all students who the individual had dealt with advising them that we are resetting their online passwords as a precautionary measure and offering them advice about data security.

"We are reviewing our current internal procedures for dealing with fraud activity and are working with our outsourced centre to tighten security procedures."